Isa MelsheimerLand aus Glas

Exhibition

Introduction
Christian Muhr, freelance exhibition organizer, Vienna

Grünangergasse 1

1010 Vienna

18 Feb – 25 Apr 2009

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Everywhere, reflecting and shining into the individual and inevitably also into “nothingness” is the “other,” and all the more so, the more one loves the “other.” This is why the nature of the creative being might best be described as the yearning for the annulment of individuality, for the taking down of one’s own borders by taking in the “other” …
Bruno Taut, Mein Weltbild, 1920

In her sculptures and installations Isa Melsheimer often makes reference to architecture and housing. Her work is about non-inhabited places such as the spaces under bridges or stairs, it echoes – often in shoebox format – the elements of housing culture, and in these miniature worlds the artist sheds a critical-poetic light on sociopolitical utopias and psychosocial realities.

In her current exhibition Isa Melsheimer approaches the non-place of utopia and its failure through the specific example of the Glass Chain, a correspondence amongst a group of expressionist architects initiated in by Bruno Taut in November of 1919. Isa Melsheimer’s glass sculptures make reference to the sketched visions of Carl Krayl, Wenzel August Hablik, Hans Scharoun, the Luckhardt brothers, and Bruno Taut himself, to name a few, in particular to the latter’s “Alpine Architecture” (1919). Partly multicolored, partly also framed in lead (Tiffany technique) Melsheimer’s sculptures are about the vision of a crystal architecture and the expressionists’ mystical glorification of glass. These works are substantiated by the writings of Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915), whose novel “Glass Architecture” had a decisive impact on the group of architects. Excerpts from this novel have been embroidered onto long swaths of fabric, for example:

“We live, for the most part, in closed spaces. These form the environment that gives rise to our culture. To a certain extent, our culture is a product of our architecture. If we want to raise our culture to a higher level, we must transform our architecture, and for this we must do away with the closed nature of the spaces we live in. This, however, can only be achieved by introducing a glass architecture that would allow sunlight and the light of the moon and the stars to penetrate, not only through a few windows but through as many glass walls as possible, fully glazed walls made of colored glass. The new environment thus created will inevitably engender a new culture.”

The German Revolution of 1918 brought hope for a new political, cultural, and social situation, which according to Bruno Taut could best be achieved under the guidance of a new architecture. As a real, political entity, however, the Arbeitsrat für Kunst [Workers Council for Art] founded in 1918 was doomed to fall short of Taut’s revolutionary utopian ideals. By contrast, the letters of the Glass Chain offered its members unimagined opportunities for development. Bruno Taut won over such names as Carl Krayl, Hans Scharoun, Jakobus Göttel, Wenzel August Hablik, Walter Gropius, Max Taut, Hermann Finsterlin, Wassili, and Hans Luckhardt, among others. The programmatic call for a glass architecture that would create crystal palaces that dramatized light as the great “essence of mysteries” and convey cosmic consciousness to mankind presupposed the architect as a kind of Nietzschean savior.

The Glass Chain was, by no means, a homogenous group, and the belief-or-form debate soon broke out among its members. Influenced by the “Neues Bauen” movement, rationalism and clarity eventually won out over belief. Correspondence between the group members ended in December of 1920. The third series of works in the exhibition was inspired by buildings realized by the individual group members: gouaches – visible behind and between threads strung across the gallery spaces.

Glasarchitektur

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The milieu and its influence on the development of culture

(translation)

We live mostly in closed spaces. These form the milieu from which our culture grows. Our culture is a product of our architecture. If we want to bring our culture to a higher level, we are forced to transform our architecture. And this will only be possible if we take away the closedness of the spaces in which we live. But we can do this only by introducing glass architecture, which allows the sunlight and the light of the moon and stars into the rooms not only through a few windows, but through as many walls as possible, which are completely made of glass of colored glass. The new milieu, that we create for ourselves in this way, must bring us a new culture.

—

Paul Scheerbart

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The future of “traveling”

(translation)

In the future, people will “travel” to see new glass architecture, which will always look different in all places on earth.

Traveling for the sake of “glass architecture” has a purpose anyway; one may well “expect” new glass effects in other places. It can also be assumed that nine tenths of the daily press will only report on new glass effects.

The daily press “needs” the new – that is why it will not be hostile to glass.

—

Paul Scheerbart

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The avoidance of the mercury mirror effects

(translation)

If the danger of the Tiffany effects cannot be denied completely – they are dangerous only in unartistic hands – but only in the dressing room the mercury mirror effects should be allowed to have an existence of usefulness.

In the other rooms of the house, the mirror effects, which always illuminate their surroundings in different lighting, are detrimental to the overall architectural impression, since they do not have a lasting effect.

Where kaleidoscope effects are desired, they are probably justified but otherwise one is well advised to avoid the mercury level; it is dangerous like a poison.

—

Paul Scheerbart

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Isa Melsheimer

Photo

Markus Wörgötter

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